It had been raining for three days straight, so it was hot and sticky as I don’t know what at the cemetery, and I couldn’t watch ’em lower Mama into that damp ground. I didn’t care how pretty everybody said that casket was. All I kept thinking was, How in the world is she gon’ breathe in that thing down there? Deep down, I guess I been playing a game with myself. That I’ll see her on her next trip to Chicago. That she’s just going on a underground cruise instead of one on water. That she’ll still get to see them islands and I can’t wait for her to tell me all about it when she get back.

I left everybody out there and went on back to the house to make sure everything was ready when the folks got there. Aunt Suzie didn’t go to the funeral, but since she belonged to a Circle Group—which ain’t nothing but a bunch of churchgoing old women who love going to funerals and don’t care who died—she pretended like it was a stranger who had passed and stopped by to help out. They claim their whole purpose is to honor the dead, but it seemed like they really just came for the free food, ’cause they sure was killing it.

I didn’t know half the people that showed up. It musta been at least a hundred folks. It’s times like this when I wished we had central air conditioning. Next house. She wasn’t in here fifteen minutes when I heard Paris tell Al she might run to the store to buy some more fans, since everybody kept saying how hot it was. She love testing me. Everybody did look hot, but what the hell they expect? It’s ninety degrees outside. It’s Chicago. And it’s June. I told Al to tell her to keep her American Express in her wallet, that we didn’t need her charity. He just told her maybe they wouldn’t stay as long; that they could cool off at home.

I wished there was somewhere I coulda hid from all the kissy-huggy-too-much-makeup-and-perfume-wearing relatives I didn’t remember, but Janelle seemed to. For the past two hours, all I been doing is watching folks eat and in between bites listening to ’em trying to get us to remember how much they remember about us: how many of our shitty diapers they changed; who was there when we took our first step; who burnt our ears and necks with smoking straightening combs and big bumper curlers; who saved us when we almost drowned in Lake Michigan. After a while, I did hide upstairs in my room, but Al found me and made me go back. A lot of people started leaving, ’cause the food was almost gone, and then some folks still begged for aluminum foil and paper plates. Janelle was running back and forth to the kitchen. Aunt Suzie Mae’s friends was the last ones to go, ’cause I just came out and told ’em to please leave so family could be with family. Aunt Suzie, she went with ’em.